Sustainability Technology & The Evolution of Smart Cities

Tag: science

Fisker reportedly made a breakthrough in solid-state batteries – and their technology could allow an EV to travel 500 miles after a single charge.

The company has filed a patent for a groundbreaking solid-state battery.

Green Car Congress reports that the patent includes claims about manufacturing processes and novel materials, saying, “Fisker’s solid-state batteries will feature three-dimensional electrodes with 2.5 times the energy density of lithium-ion batteries.” Recharging such a battery, they pointed out, would take less time than filling up a tank of gas today.

Here’s a representation of the three-dimensional electrodes:

Stakeholders:

Fisker

Fabio Albano, co-founder of Sakti3 and Fisker’s vice president of battery systems.

Deployment/Implementation:

The project is years away from completion.

Deploy when figure logistics of implementation are figured out

For this particular technology, Fisker says that it will be automotive production grade ready around 2023.

In the meantime, Fisker plans to launch its Emotion electric car at CES 2018 in January 2018

It is very impressive technology considering how slow plastic decomposes. According to the link, “PET plastic takes between 450 – 1000 years to decompose. Most PET bottles end up in a landfill, eventually contaminating lands and groundwater. William Horner, Founder and President of Totally Green Bottles & Caps, believes that the bottled water marketplace is long overdue for a 100% compostable bottle, cap, and label.” This would reduce a lot of waste that could take hundreds of years to decompose. I wonder if there would be any health effects from drinking water out of these bottles all the time.

IBM Raises the Bar with a 50-Qubit Quantum Computer

IBM has developed a quantum computer that can handle 50 qubits per second. The computer IBM developed is still unstable, only preserving its state for 90 microseconds.

Sustainability Issue:

Category: Energy

The world generates 2.5 exabytes of data every day [0]. With the explosion of data being generated and preserved combined with billions of devices connecting to the internet, an issue the world will face is the ability to power all the machines and devices on a modern world. Rolf Landauer calculated and demonstrated that each bit operation of a computer requires a minimum amount of energy. With the amount of data being generated and saved, researchers are predicting the world will encounter energy issues to power all of our devices by 2040[1]. The world’s fastest computer processes 33 Petaflops per second, which consumes 17.8 megawatts[2].

energy requirements of computers and devices will outpace ‘reasonable’ supply

volume of data requiring more processing time

Technology Solution:

Traditional computers store information in the form of a 1 or 0. As a result, traditional computers require energy and generate vast amounts of heat to perform complex calculations and operations. IBM’s development of a 50 -qubit quantum computer is 100 million times faster and consumes less energy than traditional computers. Quantum computers are able to store information as 1 and 0 simultaneously, vis-a-vis a feature of quantum mechanics known as superposition. The key feature of quantum computers is they can perform complicated calculations beyond the reaches of today’s computer while consuming less energy. Today’s computers can take days and weeks to calculate factors with hundreds and thousands of digits, which consumes vast amounts of energy. With IBM’s 50- qubit quantum computer, factors with 555 digits can be calculated within seconds.

Revolutionize computer architecture

Development in new materials

Increase encryption for devices / communication networks / etc..

Improvement in artificial intelligence (particularly deep learning)

Climate models can be more complex

Stakeholders:

Inventors: IBM, Google, Facebook, Intel, Rigetti, etc..

Consumers: change the world

Energy companies: utilities will see lower demand as servers and server farms consume less energy

The journal Pediatrics states that about 30% of children have food allergies. Studies show that introducing allergenic foods at an early stage of a child’s life can help reduce the future development of allergies.

To tackle this issue, company Before Brands has developed a product called SpoonfulOne. SpoonfulOne is a protein supplement powder that help “support and educate the immune system”. The body will then get accustomed to proteins found in several allergenic food such as different nuts, milk, soy and more.

The powder is sold through a subscription based model where parents receive the powder that they can then mix into their children’s food.

-Map areas that have the biggest numbers of kids with food allergies and work in this areas

-Reach out to hospitals and pediatricians and pharmacists to work with them and have them recommend the product to their clients

-Reach out to schools to let them know about the products. Having a reduction in food allergies is definitely going to help make their life easier so they should be interested in any preventive measures

A prototype LED crossing uses sensors to respond to the movement of vehicles, cyclists and pedestrians

“We’ve been designing a pedestrian crossing for the 21st century,” says Usman Haque, Umbrellium‘s founding partner. “Crossings that you know were designed in the 1950s, when there was a different type of city and interaction.”

This smart crossing doesn’t just look more modern than the 60 years old versions; it uses machine learning to make the crossings safer. Figures from the Transport Research Laboratory show that 7,000 incidents happen on them each year in the UK.

The actual crossing doesn’t exist until it’s safe for you to cross – then LED patterns appear to direct people and stop cars.

The machines could also learn to project the crossing at a slightly different orientation if, for instance, everyone makes a beeline for a certain shop after a school days.

Stakeholders:

Umbrellium

Insurance Firm – Direct Line

Cities

Deployment/Implementation:

The project is still some way from completion.

To speed up the process, the code behind it is being made open source.

Deploy when figure logistics of implementation are figured out

Have multiple detection systems, to be fail safe such as version that has a pressure sensor which detects where footsteps are.

The results confirm that the tower captures and removes up to 70% of the ingested PM10 and up to 50% of the ingested PM2.5. For a tower in an open field in calm weather, this provides PM10 reductions up to 45% and PM2.5 reductions up to 25% in a circle with diameter of more than 20 m around the tower. When the tower is applied in semi-enclosed or enclosed courtyards, the beneficial effects can be much larger. These statistics are astounding to me and these towers can help many people in very polluted areas.

Comments to Off grid solar powered water device – Zero Mass Water by JV2610

A unit with one solar panel, the company says, can produce two to five liters of liquid a day, which is stored in a 30-liter reservoir that adds calcium and magnesium for health and taste. This seems very energy efficient and seems to be able to store a pretty good amount. The addition of electrolytes is even more interesting and beneficial for health.

1. Air pollution is the primary source of thousands of diseases and damages of the spacious of the planet earth and the largest source of the current global warming issue.

2. The Technology:
-Smog Free tower world’s first and largest air purifier (smog vacuum cleaner) is not only solving the air pollution, safety, and healthcare issue but also building awareness within the society through their jewelry with the Smog Diamond.
-The Dutch artist and innovator, Daan Roosegaarde believing that his creation will solve the issue of the billions of people’s rights to clean breath air.
– By sharing a Smog Free Ring, you donate 1000 m3 of clean air to the city. In 2017, Roosegaarde presents a new addition to Smog Free Project: the Smog Free Bicycle.
-Already working with one of the most polluted cities like Beijing and Shanghai

– Collaborate with the government organizations and establish a long-term contract for the clean air projects investment using the smog-free tower.
– Educate citizens towards air pollution and harms
– Promote brand and using their nitch solving a worldwide issue through art and technology

Based on The American Diabete Association’s statistics, “About 1.25 million Americans have type 1 diabetes and an estimated 40,000 people will be newly diagnosed each year in the U.S.”
Type 1 Diabete is a disease that causes body not to’t produce insulin and it is usually diagnosed in children and young adults.

Scientific have been working at developing a vaccine called bacillus Calmette-Guérin. The vaccine, which is still being tested, would reverse the effects of Type 1 Diabete. The way it works is by destroying the defective white blood cells (beta cells) which are hindering the release of insulin the blood.
The vaccine showed very promising results and is being tested on humans.